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Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Back to the Future Day -- What Back to the Future Part II Got Right and Wrong

Great
Scott! It’s the future!

We’ve
been here before—or have we?

In
1989, the hit movie Back to the Future Part IIzoomed to a world filled with flying cars and hoverboards, a time
of drones and video phones.

The
date: Oct. 21, 2015. (At precisely 4:29 p.m.)

Doc
Brown (Christopher Lloyd) set the DeLorean time machine to the future, so he
and Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) could travel into the future and straighten
out a few McFly family issues.

Part
of the fun of watching Back to the Future Part II now is checking out the “future” world of 2015 that the filmmakers
imagined, from dog-walking robots to the “Jaws 19” hologram billboard to the
colorful and strange clothing. Clearly, the film got some things wrong (Jaws only
had three sequels), but it actually got some things right.

To
celebrate “Back to the Future Day,” let’s look back at five thingsBack to the Future Part IIgot right,
and five things it got wrong, about Oct. 21, 2015.

Five things the film got right:

1.Florida has a professional baseball team.

In
Back to the Future Part II, Miami is
home to a Major League baseball team, something Florida lacked in 1989 when the
movie was produced. The Florida Marlins, which changed their name to the Miami
Marlins in 2011, didn’t exist until 1993. In the film, Miami falls to the Chicago Cubs in the World Series, which could prove semi-prophetic because the long-suffering
Cubbies are still alive in the playoffs (Miami failed to make the post-season).

2.Video games as antiques.

In
1989, video games from previous console generations were essentially worthless,
and very few people thought of them as special from a collectible or
antiquarian viewpoint. However, in the film you can see boxed copies ofJaws(1987) and BurgerTime (1987) for the Nintendo NES displayed prominently in the
window of an antique store. Today, retro game collecting is huge (certain rare
cartridges command thousands of dollars), and there’s even a National Videogame
Museum coming to Frisco in December.

3. Flat-screen televisions.

During
the 1980s, tube TVs were still the norm, and most of the bigger ones were only
25 inches or so in size. (35-inch TVs were a niche market, and you can forget
the 35-inch projection TVs—those things were terrible). However, Back to the Future Part II screenwriter Bob
Gale, no doubt influenced by such futurists as George Orwell and Arthur C.
Clarke, envisioned a future world where huge flat screen television sets were
everywhere, in public and in homes. He also predicted multi-screen viewing.

4. Wearable technology.

In
the film, numerous characters are shown wearing ugly, technology-enhanced
glasses (techno-specs?), which work as cameras, magnifiers and real-time information
retrieval devices. (Nowhere to be found are iPads, iPods or iPhones, though.) Ho-hum.
You can’t shake a fist without knocking into someone wearing an Apple Watch or
a Fitbit, or who has tried Google Glass, Sony SmartEyeglasses or Recon Jets
(which are designed for cyclists)—or made fun of people who do.

5. Video phone calls.

Do
you miss seeing your nephew who moved to Japan or your oldest child who recently
went off to college? Simply chat them up via FaceTime on your computer, tablet
or smart phone. The movie more or less nailed this aspect of modern society,
such as when Marty McFly gets a video business call from Douglas J. Needles
(played by Flea), whose personal data runs across the bottom of the screen (an
interesting, social media-esque variant on the technology).

Five things the film got wrong:

1. Flying cars.

Ever
sinceThe Jetsonsbegan airing on
television during the early 1960s, mainstream America has longed for the flying
car, a mode of transportation that is still only in the development stages (by
a company called Terrafugia, which is derived from the Latin for “Escape the
Earth”). In Back to the Future Part II,
flying cars zip and zoom all over, which is probably the movie’s biggest
misfire when it comes to predicting the future.

2. Hoverboards.

Though
it scores comedy points for Marty repeating his skateboarding act from the
original Back to the Future (1985), but
this time with a hoverboard,Back to the
Future Part IIis overly optimistic when it comes to the admittedly
fun-looking technology. Like the flying car, the hoverboard is still in the
developmental phase. According to the website for Hendo, the company promising
a retail-level hoverboard in the near future, “Our hoverboards are working in
almost every way we could have imagined. We look forward to sharing them as
they become a reality.”

3. A female president of the United
States.

If
you pause the scene where Marty is looking at a copy of USA Today from 2015,
you can see that the paper refers to the president of the United States as a
“she.” We’re not there yet in the real world, but we might be close. If either
DemocratHillary Clintonor Republican Carly Fiorina can stave off their many,
many male opponents in the 2016 election, the filmmakers will be able to say
they almost got it right. Sadly, the newspaper in the film also refers to a
“Queen Diana,” but Diana, Princess of Wales died in a car crash in 1997.

4. Self-tying shoes.

Shortly
after landing in 2015, Marty dons self-tying Nike high-tops. While Nike has
marketed a similar looking shoe
(2011’s Nike Air Mag), and while the company has promised the technology in the
not too distant future, we poor, overworked humans still have to lace up our
sneakers ourselves (or at least fasten the elastic straps or attach the
Velcro). Clothing designers have also failed to develop a self-drying,
size-adjustable jacket like the one Marty wears. On a more positive note, at
least we don’t wear double neckties or our pants inside out.

5. Dust-repellent paper.

When
Marty goes to the aforementioned antique store and buys a copy of Grays Sports Almanac, one of the key
elements of the film, the sales lady explains that, “This has an interesting
feature. It has a dust jacket. Books had these to protect the covers. That was
before dust-repellent paper.” Dust-repellent paper has yet to be invented, and it
likely never will. Not only is our culture relying less on paper and more on
electronics these days, it’s hard to imagine anyone spending too much money on dust-repellent
paper technology. Or, as the kids might say, “Is that even a thing?”

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About Me

A freelance writer, I'm the author of the Classic Home Video Games series, The 100 Greatest Console Video Games: 1977-1987, Encyclopedia of KISS, and other books. I've had articles published in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Filmfax, Fangoria, AntiqueWeek, The Writer, Mystery Scene, and more.
Contact me at brettw105 AT sbcglobal.net.